In Northern Ireland

[juliet]

doop & I are in Northern Ireland for the week, visiting his family. We travelled up yesterday; given my well-known antipathy to flying, this meant bike/train/ferry. And it all went incredibly smoothly. All the trains were bang on time, there were bike spaces available (we booked in advance but in fact were not asked for our bike-tickets, although I STRONGLY RECOMMEND booking on Intercity-type services[0]), & they let us on the earlier ferry at Cairnryan when we arrived 4hrs before our booked tickets[1]. All a very positive experience.

Plus we found a lovely cafe in Stranraer for lunch -- McCoag's Bistro, Charlotte St, strongly recommended for v tasty beanburger & chips, fantastic home-cooked chocolate cake, and a friendly proprietor. Then there was a splendid 6 mi ride up the road to Cairnryan (where I beat doop to the ferry terminal! I did have a head start when he stopped to take his jacket off, BUT STILL); then 13 mi around the water from Larne on the other side, which was admittedly a little hilly. We stopped to watch the local starlings doing their murmuration thing on the way, which was gorgeous against the dusk over the loch.

Plans for this week: Giant's Causeway, trip into Belfast, lots of sitting around being lazy.

[0] Ideally, book at the time you buy your own ticket, from NXEastCoast, who have a "bikes" tickybox, bless them. Otherwise, in person with your human-tickets to hand at any mainline station. London Bridge are helpful but often have to spend 15 min working out how to do this; KX/Euston/Paddington are more knowledgable & thus faster.
[1] We booked on the 8pm ferry with the intention of leaving London at 11am or something; then discovered that the 11am train was going to cost about £200 as we hadn't booked early enough. The 0539 was £25 each, London-Stranraer, which was a bit more reasonable, but would have left us with 6 hrs to kill in Stranraer had they been more intransigent at the ferry terminal. 0539 is admittedly not my *favourite* time to have to be at Euston for.

Comments

[lnr]

Oh you make me want to go visit! Driving up to Stranraer or Cairnryan and getting the ferry across to Larne was a pretty much annual pilgrimage in our family growing up. And I really must take Mike to see the Giant's Causeway and Carrick a Rede. I'm amazed by how cheap the train is (though I never ever manage to book trains early enough to get those sort of fares).

NB East Coast have dropped the NX bit - currently they're nationalised again!

[juliet]

The hideous-early train we only booked about a month ago & there were still cheap fares available (note that that's a single; we're coming back via Troon at about the same cost); so if you book late but don't mind travelling at unsociable hours, you're sorted ;) The ferry's only 26 quid each way, as well.

ION: would you like a DW invite, since you're commenting over here? I have some going spare!

[lnr]

Happy with openid for now thanks. I've a permanent LJ account, which makes me less likely to move than I might be otherwise, and if I'm not moving where I'm blogging openid seems to do everything I need for reading and commenting.

As for trains: I'm thinking of things like my trip to York the week after easter - we first looked at trains a couple of weeks back and there's nothing available cheaper than the super off-peak return, and the same was true when we went to Edinburgh. I just need to be more organised. Still, at least I did get a cheap fare one way for our trip to the pennines in the summer, and the trip back is from a different station, so cheap off-peak returns don't really apply.

Lunch

[noodles]

If you're planning on being in Belfast during the day I'm work right in the city centre (less than 5 minutes walk from the city hall) and can always be talked into lunch...

Re: Lunch

[juliet]

We are planning to be there on Friday! Text me yr phone no? (mine is 07932 696236) Also perhaps you can suggest somewhere good (& vegan-friendly) for lunch :)